The way I was buying shipping materials was way too expensive. I was running to the local Walgreens and picking up a manila bubble wrap envelope ($1.29) or a small box ($1.99).. combine that with the actual postage, I was around $4.00 for the most expensive option. I do credit back any overages on my shipping, but it was pretty close at $4. I wasn't shipping very often because I just didn't put stuff up on ebay. But now that I'm in a store, and I need to generate income from my smalls during the week, ebay is a necessity.

Also, my hot wheels that are currently listed is in packaging, not loose. Takes more than just a drop in an envelope and out the door to preserve the cardboard package.

I went ahead and bought several smaller boxes through ebay to accommodate the hot wheels that I have up now, should work well for other smalls as well!

crediting back shipping is a nice gesture but really probably not necessary. give yourself some credit, you deserve to be paid for the time packing, materials you use and also gas and time in driving to the post office. as long as your charging fair shipping prices people wont care. as for packaging materials walgreens charges a fortune for crappy packing tape and envelopes. heck even staples your gonna pay like 99 cents or more just for a bubble wrapped maila. i find really cheap packaging materials at the flea market. another good place is online envelope and packaging material stores. oddly enough big names like uline tend to charge more than some of the smaller lesser known online shops

How many of us use craigslist services section for manual labor? I have had to use it once because I bought a locker with an elliptical machine I couldn't move on my own, nor fit in my van. Hired a guy with a truck and we got it loaded up and moved. He charged me $25, we brought it straight to Play It Again sports (used sporting goods store) and sold it for $300. Best $25 I ever spent!

Ever use hired help through craigslist for bigger jobs? Use "rent a guy with a truck" services for smaller one or 2 piece specialty moves? Got a tip for sourcing these types of services?

used to be the managers would let me use the facilities box trucks for free until some other idiots they allowed to do this with crashed trucks a number of tiems.

you can rent trucks at home depot for like 24 an hour and its not as much hassle as uhual in terms of paperwork and taking 2 hours to leave their office.

ive hired craigslist labor its kinda hit or miss

While I do agree that a niche will help succeed in any realm of sales. I also think there is something to be said to market yourself as "you never know what we'll have". It works for the thrift stores, why can't it work for ebay?

I guess the real question is.. do people like browsing online like they do in thrift stores?

I'm sure you do get some buyers who like variety and like browsing random stuff. I love browsing stuff, that's why I love flea markets you never know what your going to find and have a bit of everything. I think its entirely different walking around with my coffee looking at physical merchandise outdoors in the sun though versus sitting on my computer and randomly browsing.

If I have to look thrugh stickers and old nintendo games and tools just to see if you have bose in wall speakers I'll probably just go to the search function and bypass the store.

I'll give an example why I think a niche is great. The other day I'mshopping ebay and amazon for holsters for my beretta. That's all I needed and all I wanted was a holster. Well I find one and its from a seller who sells all types of gun and tactical type equipment. He had laserlights, flashlights, gun cleaning kits, speed loaders, ccw bags, etc. I wound up buying several items I hadn't planned on getting. Its like okay I need a holster, oh this dudes got hogue grips for $6 I'll take one of those, oh a bag would be cool ill grab a tactical messenger bag its only $18, oh this guys got speedloaders I hate hand loading hurts my fingers ther's a feww more bucks. the guy got me to buy like 4 items when all i wanted was a holster just because he had a niche and related merchandise.

Why such a big box for a matchbox car?

personally for a matchbox car I'd probably throw it in a sandwhich bag and drop it in a bubble envelope

Just do a search on eBay for: "250 White Corrugated Shipping Mailer".
You can buy less than 250 at a time (or more) but the lower the quantity the higher the per box price. For example you can get 250 for under .20 each but the same boxes at 100 count is more like .33 per box. You can also get 500 at a time and drop the per box price down around .16 each. These prices include the shipping too. Of course these prices can vary depending on the size box you need, but I figure a matchbox doesn't need a very big box.

great tip on actually spending some money and geting proper packing materails. its a more professional presentation, will protect your items nad it can actually be really affordable if you buy in bulk. i tend to stay off ebay for buying this stuff though, ebayers are just getting them from wholesalers and marking up the price to cover 9% ebay fees plus turn a profit. may as well go directly to the companies who sell packaging materials. the one thing i have found at bargain prices on amazon however are those ebay shipping labels. those things save so much time. i know people myself included are cheap and dont wanna shell out money for this stuff but its a more professional presentation, protects your stuff and often ships for cheaper and saves you money in the long run, when you rusing recycled boxes you have lying around the house your probably using stuff thats not the correct size you need and costing you due to added bulk and weight.

Hey, I know with storage auctions you kinda get a little bit of everything, toys, clothes, electronics, etc. This is great and you can make great money as you generally get your merchandise at very low prices. Problem being it doesn't get you repeat customers. The guy who buys your Thomas The Train Toy Set is probably not going to be interested in  your Coach Purse.

Basically everything in ebay revolves around volume, lower paypal fees, lower shipping fees, this allows you to offer more competitive prices and rise above the competition. Also, the more volume you do, the more people look at your listings the higher you rank in searches and both these things raise your ebay score which inspires buyer confidence and also helps in searches.

The only way to truly rise to the top on ebay is to have repeat buyers. Why are repeat buyers good, because once someone has dealt with you they trust you, you build a relationship, they wont harrass you when the post office runs a few days slow, they wont open cases against you, not only will they not leave you negative feedback but they will go out of their way to leave positive feedback to help you.

An example I give as one of the best product categories is silver. It's got a huge market and its something people want and consistantly will buy. Some people will spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars each paycheck or each month and will keep comming back to you. Obviously this is a tough market, changing prices, hard to find sources not saying you should get into silver but just an example of a category you will get repat buyers on.

If you do storage auctions yes your going to get random merch, however try to have a niche if its electronics buy auctions with electronics try to get merchandise elsewhere as well to add to your store whether its returned palates from best buy or something else.

Just some advice.

IMHO your almost always better off offering free shipping and roll the cost into the product price. First off when you offer free shipping you rank higher in the search rankings and if people don't see your product it's not gonna sell. So if someone searches by best match your most likely gonna pop up first. If someoen searches cost low to high it doesn't matter if shpping is rolled into cost or not if you got the lowest cost product your still gonna come out on top.

One other thing to consider, if someone offers flat rate shipping and I can see from the search function the price I may buy,however if it's calculated and I have to go into the listing put in my zipcode, etc I'moften to lazy and will look at other listings.

As someoen else commented ebay now charges final value fees for shipping so there's really no benefit ot rolling costs into shipping. one other thing I would bring up is that free shipping automaticlaly gets you 5 stars for dsr scores as well buyer cant leave anything lower.

The only benefit to charging for shipping is it kind of deters refunds if you set it up so the buyer gets refunded product cost but not shipping cost but that's really the only advantage to not offering free shipping and rolling product cost into cost.